What’s the difference between Documentary and Drama when you’re developing a Transmedia Storyworld? I am often asked this question, so here’s a breakdown of the core Storyworld concept for both fac...

Minna Kilpeläinen's insight:

Krish compares interactive documentaries and interactive drama and finds that documentaries (for now) use less platforms. I believe that factual transmedia storyworlds have many platforms still to discover. The key is the main character. In addition to web platforms and TV, the main character can also meet the audience in live events, make their own vlogs and chat in different social media platforms.

Still, it is important have a clear focus in the story. Krish uses the term limitation. "With the boundary in place, you will focus only on the important aspects and concentrate your efforts on bringing them to life", says Krish.

Alvaro Liuzzi reminds transmedia-storytellers to think it through the user.Five times I: Immersion. Users want to enter more deeply into a story and learn more about the story world.Interactivity. Users want to be able to change or influence story elements and interact with other users involved in a global narrative.Integration. The story should be cohesive across various platforms and have some sort of interface with the real world.Impact. The story should inspire the user to act in the real world.

First came the web. Then came social media. Now journalists face a new challenge on the horizon: big data. It used to be that data journalism lived in a corner of the newsroom, in the care of investigative or business reporters.

Minna Kilpeläinen's insight:

"In 2013, IBM rsearchers found thet 90 percent of the world´s data had been created in the previous two years."

It is journalists´ and researchers´ job to show, what the data has to do with our lives. Journalists need skills for that.

Transmedia is a powerful tool for empowerment. International advocacy campaigns are engaging multiplatform campaigns that can benefit from co-creation and co-option of shared values through transmedia engagement techniques. James Pamment describes a case study of the Campaign to End Sexual Violence in Conflict.

"Audience participation encourages a playful appropriation of assets that enriches the diegetic world with new stories and perspectives, and ultimately strengthens the symbolic universe, its associated brands and the relationship between the owner of the assets and the audience."

The social media landscape changes rapidly and keeping up with the latest numbers is a challenge. Here are the latest facts figures and statistics from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn

Jonathan Stray: "The next time you feel a story is being ignored, try doing a search in Google News. Almost always I find that some mainstream organization has covered it, even if it was never front-page."

Stray asks, what are the editorial products we should be building. First he lists, what we already have.

We already record what just happened. We can locate pre-existing information by search engines. We can filter the information tsunami. We have tools for explanatory journalism. Wikipedia is still the most effective place to get background information on any topic. We expose wrongdoings via investigative journalism and debunk lies and rumours with products like Politifact, Emergent.Info or Snopes.

What we don´t have, says Stray, are editorial products that tell us, what we can do about the facts we learn from the news. We need moderated places for difficult discussions. We need personalized news that are more accurate, not based on clicks and likes only. We don’t have good models for a “conversation” that might include millions of people. There are no proper communication channels between citizens and governments. We need systematic government coverage. Story creation should be interactive, we should be able to choos our own adventures.

A 2014 Nielsen Digital Consumer Report said that 84 percent of U.S. smartphone and tablet owners watch television with a second screen in hand. Second screen action is definitely something networks should explore and figure out how to engage viewers to their content. Question is, how do networks and other media companies build interactive web platforms for today’s viewers?

Second screen action often happens on social channels that networks don’t own, and therefore can’t control, but they do have the ability to capture and amplify what’s happening.

Fishman suggests that one way media companies could approach the second screen is to create original and exclusive digital video content that stands apart from linear broadcast programming. That means focusing strongly on transmedia storytelling. Media concepts no longer contain only tv-programmes, you have to produce a multiplatform experience from the beginning.

Author’s disclaimer: This article is aimed toward commercial, business-to-business photographers. Consumer photographers may get something from it as well, but there are different market forces at work in that genre.

"Perhaps it is time for photographers to start focusing on what they deliver: visual solutions. engagement, and brand awareness.

And those solutions may be photographs, photo illustrations, motion, full video, social media graphics, Instagram/Vine combos… whatever it takes to create something that helps a client grow their business."

Barry Joseph: "Transmedia play “involves experimentation with and participation in a transmedia experience, but also applies to media that has no storyline, such as open-ended video games.” Open-ended games like Minecraft."

An excellent article that explores the link between Minecraft and the concept of transmedia education. It underscores the importance of defining transmedia as a cross-media experience and critical 21st century literacy (and not immediately escalating to images of a Hollywood franchise). It also contains links to a couple of very good 'transmedia education' resources if you haven't read them.

My vision of a digital health revolution is in four parts, those being:

Access to information (the internet age)Access to each other (the socialised internet)Access to ourselves (the rise of quantified self, expressed through mobile and wearable health technology)Access to everyone (the subsequent development and application of big data)

What is interesting is that it is really a revolution in five parts, the final one is not as noisy as the previous four. It could even be called silent, but there is good reason to believe it will be the most important for the future of medicine, healthcare and well-being. This is the connectivity to everything.

Without help this revolution will by-pass the demographic that need it most ie the unwired, co-morbid, underprivileged elderly. Thankfully there are some companies out there trying to access these stakeholders eg http://www.seespeak.co.uk/

The technology world moves fast, especially where social media is concerned. Sometimes it can seem like there's a new "Facebook-killer" on tap every week -- especially if you have a tech reporter's inbox. And the rumors of that ten-year-old network's death seem to be even more frequent, with reports saying that teenagers are killing its growth prospects by turning to other options.

But, with the Meerkats, Periscopes and Snapchats of the world now vying for attention, it's not always clear how teens are really using social media these days. To explore the question, The Pew Research Center asked over 1,000 respondents, between ages 13 and 17, for their thoughts, and included them in a report published Thursday.

Virtual reality experience can evoke intense reactions among the participants. Audience testing and the possibility to debrief experiences afterwards make sure the audience trust you as an immersive reality storyteller in the future, too.

Noah, AKA @beebaaahp, is a five year-old boy. He likes playing Wii tennis (complains about line calls), having Mr. Man books read to him at bedtime, and snacking on string cheese and applesauce squeezies.

He’s a digital native; his little fingers have tapped and swiped the surfaces of iPads and iPhones practically his whole life. Once, while his parents were asleep early in the morning, he powered on the television set, toggled to the input for the Roku media player, selected a TV episode he wanted to watch on Amazon Instant, correctly guessed the password necessary to make a purchase, and started watching his show.

Noah is my son, and lately one of his favorite things is twitter. He asked several times to have his own account, and would often demand to tweet from my account (or do it without asking). He wanted to use the same media of communication that his parents use, to play with our toys. It seemed harmless enough, and I monitor his account pretty closely. Since I said ok in December, 2014, he has tweeted hundreds of times, followed more than 250 others, and collected around 50 followers. Not too shabby for a user just learning to read.

Noah goes to kindergarten all day M-F, and every afternoon he brings home the artworks he made at school, typically in the medium of marker on paper. Having a child in kindergarten really reveals the blurry line between culture and garbage. The creative work of our precious darlings must go in the trash almost all the time if we are not to suffocate under an ever-expanding oeuvre. But creativity play is about process as much as product.

I like to see Noah’s tweets as a digital analog to his art projects. He’s messing around and expressing himself and making things to give to others and exploring his imagination using the tools available. That the tweets are saved and published rather than admired insincerely and dropped in the kitchen receptacle when he isn’t looking is, in some ways, incidental. But this gives us an easy way of archiving the expressive record without amassing physical clutter, and it shares his life with others who might be interested to see a kid’s work.

Fine art photographer Vincent Bourilhon expresses his dreams of a dynamic, vibrant world through enchantingly whimsical images. The Paris-based creative, who first first picked up a camera at the age of 16, combines photography and digital manipulation for stunningly surreal results that invite viewers to get lost in otherworldly scenes and visual narratives. Since we last shared Bourilhon's work in 2013, the photographer has continued to surprise and stun with fresh, imaginative concepts. Some familiar motifs, such as airplanes, rainclouds, and magical jars, are reinterpreted in different ways, while other images explore new ideas and worlds. As always, Bourilhon's work is beautifully cinematic, with each shot resembling a still from a film filled with magic, adventure, and self-discovery. To purchase prints of Bourilhon's fantasy-inspired work, head on over to My Modern Shop. Vincent Bourilhon's website Vincent Bourilhon on Flickr Vincent Bourilhon Photography on…

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